Gujarat: BLO dies of suspected overwork during electoral roll revision duty

A school teacher serving as a Block Level Officer (BLO) in Gujarat’s Kheda district has died of a heart attack, with his family alleging that excessive workload linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls contributed to his death.

The deceased, 50-year-old Rameshbhai Parmar from Jambudi village in Kapadvanj taluka, passed away in his sleep between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

His brother, Narendra Parmar, told reporters that Rameshbhai had been under significant strain since being assigned BLO duties in addition to his work as a government school teacher in Navapura village.

According to his family, Parmar returned home around 7.30 pm on Wednesday after completing his field duties and immediately resumed paperwork. Owing to poor mobile network coverage in his village, he visited his brother’s house to continue uploading documents and worked there until 11.30 pm.

After returning home, he had dinner and went to bed but failed to wake up the next morning. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead. His family believes the long hours and work-related stress triggered a fatal cardiac arrest.

Parmar’s daughter, Shilpa, also claimed that he had been “under pressure” because of the responsibilities associated with the electoral roll revision.

Repeated attempts to reach District Collector Amit Prakash Yadav and District Primary Education Officer Paresh Vaghela for comment were unsuccessful.

With PTI inputs